I find x86 is better currently due to the open bootloader. I worry that we may lose that at some point and it makes second hand junk completely useless as you won’t even be able to install Linux on it anymore.
Well RISCV changes a bit the paradigm. With x86 x64 or arm whatever the manufacturers had to pay a licence and sign a contract that limited what they could manufacture and probably didn’t allow for disclosure of information. Only licenced partners could build their own chips based on those architectures.
With RISCV is different, there’s no licence for manufacturing RISCV chips, anybody can do it. No contract needed.
Arduino is an example of that. They used their own MCU and gave it free “libre”, that’s why there’re so many arduino copies that are just the same.
I hope RISCV helps with the liberation of hardware firmware. It looks promising.
I find x86 is better currently due to the open bootloader. I worry that we may lose that at some point and it makes second hand junk completely useless as you won’t even be able to install Linux on it anymore.
It won’t. Nothing stops companies from open-sourcing their hardware and firmware already.
Well RISCV changes a bit the paradigm. With x86 x64 or arm whatever the manufacturers had to pay a licence and sign a contract that limited what they could manufacture and probably didn’t allow for disclosure of information. Only licenced partners could build their own chips based on those architectures.
With RISCV is different, there’s no licence for manufacturing RISCV chips, anybody can do it. No contract needed.
Arduino is an example of that. They used their own MCU and gave it free “libre”, that’s why there’re so many arduino copies that are just the same.